'Wash before applying'

I had to run some errands in Dahlonega the other day and decided to stop and get a picture of the cross that was put up at your crash spot. It is just a simple white cross that was made by two friends of yours and Sara Bennett's. She said that they thought you would want it to have little extra pizzazz so that they added the cheetah print scarf to it, cause God knows that your personality was anything but white. They have added a laminated photo of you to the cross since the last time I had seen it a couple of weeks ago. It is a picture of you giving your maid of honor speech at my wedding. The photographers were able to capture you laughing hysterically at one of your own jokes, not that it would be difficult to capture one of those moments because you thought everything that you said was funny.

I tend to be drawn to the crash site for some reason. While neither of our brothers, our mom, or even Jared would choose to take this route to Dahlonega, I often like to drive over here even if I have no engagements in Dahlonega. For me, it holds the same gruesome, painful reminder that it does for the rest of our family, but to me that reminder isn't always bad. I find myself thinking of you as though you have taken an extended vacation, off helping some third world country, or eradicating some sort of mutated strain of a virus, instead of gone...for good. So when I pass by the small patch of road, with the enormous tree that has been stripped and bruised by your car it reminds me that you are more than simply vacationing.

I was happy to see the cross appear a few weeks after your death and even happier to see your picture added to it the other day. So long after the grass grows in from your tire tracks leading from the road to the bottom of the embankment and the tree's bark covers up the raw patch on its side and the memory of your accident fades, the cross, scarf, and picture will still stand there to help me remember.

I started thinking about all of your legendary car accidents. I remembered one in particular that, while I wasn't present for it, the story of it makes me laugh, regardless. It involved "Moe" and one unsuspecting neighbors well house. A story that began when you were about 12 years old and you decided to take the little household utility vehicle, that you lovingly named "Moe", out for a joy ride. For whatever reason, you couldn't figure out how to get the brakes to engage, and came flying down the back end of  your dad's driveway full speed ahead. Instead of going straight to your dad's house, you steered the Moe towards the neighbor's house (luckily just uses the house as a vacation home) and ran SMACK into the side of their well house. The story that I later received from your father was one of extreme humor and side stitching laughter. You stumbled up to house, on foot, soaking wet, and completely shocked. The scene behind you was basically a giant water spot shooting out from behind the trees and the "Moe" nowhere in sight. I always picture you shrugging your shoulders, soaking wet from head to toe, trying to explain to your dad that it wasn't your fault and attempting (unsuccessfully) to blame it on any other universal force other than you, the driver. When I get that image in my head I can't help but laugh.

A picture of Chelsea's tire on the side of highway 85 after it blew.

Yes, you had some great crash stories. While we had liked to make jokes of how horrible our family was when it came to driving and would often make a game of comparing how many cars we had totaled or who had caused the most damage,  we always knew of your infamous record. You are the only person I have ever known to get a red light traffic ticket on your way to court to plead for a speeding ticket (65 in a 45) that you had received a month before. Or how you thought you would just ignore all of those parking tickets that you got on Tybee Island, but the truck was registered to your dad, so by the time he got the tickets in the mail they had been doubled in price. Or the time the you were running 80 down Hwy 85 with bald tires and the front driver's side tire blew and you some how maneuvered across six lanes of traffic to the side of the road. Or when you took mom's car to go to your friend's house, totaled it,  and ran over the neighbor's monster truck mailbox in your path of destruction, not 4 miles from my house. Or the time you rear ended a guy trying to parallel park the F150 in front of Starbucks in Savannah and your dad had to pay to have is car fixed so you didn't have to file an insurance claim. Or your insane determination to park your giant truck at the bank behind the inn that you worked at even though every time you tried you added yet another huge yellow indention down the side of it due to the yellow "caution" pylons there. Or, one of the better ones, was the time you drove from Savannah to Cleveland in the truck with the passenger side mirror hanging by a thread of the duck tape and the front bumper dragging under the front end of your car. Or the time you got a ticket in March for a tag that expired in July even though you had had the new sticker in your glove box since June, of the previous year. Your excuse for not applying it? The sticker's instructions clearly stated to 'wash before applying' and you didn't want to have to run the truck through the car wash!


Your dad brought up an interesting tid bit of information the other day. He asked if I remembered what your first memory was, obviously I didn't because I don't even remember my own first memory. I do recall you making some insane claims of remembering something that happened to you when you were 3 or 4 years old, but I would just tossed it off as some more of your wild assertions. Your dad reminded that the first thing that you claimed you remembered was getting in a car accident with mom when you were about 3 years old. You guys ran off the road and down a very steep embankment about 5 miles from the accident that took your life, right off of Town Creek Church Road, in Lumpkin County. You said that you could recall being put in the ambulance and taken to the hospital after that accident. Your dad and I reflected on a what a mysterious coincidence this was.

The night that you died, while we sat waiting in the early morning hours of March 3rd, for the funeral home to come and pick your body up, Mom said something to me that, at the time, kind of took my breath away. She turned to me with red, puffy eyes and tear stained checks and said, "She was such an awful driver, with all of those car accidents, I should have known that a car accident would be the end of her." I guess with your death still being so fresh on my mind, it kind of stung to hear that from her mouth, but I can't say that the thought hadn't crossed my own mind. It is just so hard to sometimes remember that all of those memories and events lead us back to where we are now, without you.

So, I will continue to drive past that spot, and sometimes I will even stop and walk down to the bottom of the embankment where your car came to it's final resting spot, just so I continue to remember that you aren't here but that you left your mark on all of us. While the pain of remembering your sudden and tragic death is, at times, almost too much to bare, the pain of forgetting is excruciating.

You were a horrible driver, but you were great at making the world laugh.

The below conversation was about this picture.